


A Crazier than Average Year, 2012

by Callmeisolde



Series: Matt and Nat Take New York [3]
Category: Daredevil (Comics), Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: As I understand that's the only spelling that's wrong..., Battle of New York (Marvel), Blind Character, F/M, Hugs make Natasha feel vulnerable, I'm starting to really like writing Matt's POV, IDK why AO3 tags spell Romanov?, Marvel Universe, Matt Murdock Needs a Hug, Okay now there's a little bit of plot, POV Matt Murdock, POV Natasha Romanov, Post-Battle of New York (Marvel), She's Getting There, Tell me if it's too much, The Avengers (2012) Compliant, The Incident, bet you didn't expect actual plot, maybe too much, plot? what's a plot, so surprise, things heat up a little
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-01
Updated: 2018-01-27
Packaged: 2019-02-08 22:46:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12874668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Callmeisolde/pseuds/Callmeisolde
Summary: Matt is more than a little intrigued by the mysterious woman who appears to be stalking him. Natasha wants to know more about the blind vigilante. Time for some proper introductions. Chapter one and two take place before the events of The Avengers, chapter three will be after.Or, Daredevil and the Black Widow fall into and out of each other's lives and maybe start to care about each other. And aliens fall out of the sky.





	1. Enjoy the Dance

**Author's Note:**

> A playlist for this work: https://open.spotify.com/user/12183578372/playlist/63HvEXQSdF12PlFK0x0axE?si=z314b44XT7Sfd9AZyq0F2g

There’s a heartbeat in the stairwell. Around 50 beats per minute. Blood rushing through arteries and veins like a network of pipes flushing with water. Dorsal to digital, the thrumming of the blood makes a shape. A woman, about 5’7”. She shakes her head and hair whispers against the back of her shoulders. Stiff polyester fabric crinkles around her neck, water dripping from the hem and splashing to the tile. There’s motor oil on the bottom of her shoes, mingling with rainwater, a strong scent that at first obscures the warmth of her perfume. Jasmine, vanilla, bergamot and orange blossom. It’s called Krasnaya Moskva. He googled it.

Matt’s hand hovers over the doorknob. It’s really coming down out here. In a minute he’ll be soaked through. He must look ridiculous standing out in the rain. Plus, it’s loud. The driving sheets of it feel like a physical assault. He’s breathless and his heart rate is elevated just from standing here trying to concentrate. Make a plan. Make a decision. Decisiveness is better than over analyzing, decisiveness keeps you alive. Matt shrugs deeper into his trenchcoat and steps back onto the sidewalk. If she’s still there when he gets back, he’ll reconsider.

#

She’s waiting the next morning on the street. Hovering beside the door to the office, leaning against the wall, boot heel scraping on the brick. Matt listens for a few minutes from the side street. Get’s an answer to a question when every man that passes her on the sidewalk walks away with an arrhythmia. She sounds calm as ever, except today she’s grinding her teeth.

Too bad.  

She knows his identity and she’s been playing some kind of game with him ever since finding out. Little notes, traces of her perfume in his and Foggy’s apartment, clues he’s not sure how to parse. She’s fast, athletic, fights with the skills of a trained assassin and she hangs out with government agents and genetically enhanced arms dealers. Takes walks in the snow. Saves blind guys from being hit by a car. Laughs like the tinkling of broken china. Hides the last traces of an accent. Has a heartbeat that never gets above 60.

Every game is a battle for control. We learn that lesson early in life, on the playground, in the gymnasium. Out-think your opponent, force them to give, to blink, to hesitate. Make your move. If they can anticipate your direction, time to throw caution to the wind and change your course.

It’s exhilarating.   

Matt smiles, when he shows up with coffees for the office the secretary hands him a note.

_“See you tomorrow.”_

#

She’s as good as her word.

Matt thinks he’s circumventing her attempt at contact by hitting the coffee shop directly on his way to work. As soon as he steps off the noisy street and into the relative calm of the cafe, he realizes his error.

“Let’s see, I’m guessing the Americano for Mr. Hogwarth, the soy latte for Miss Sloane and the organic fair trade large, for you. Black of course.”  

Hogwarth sounds like Hogvarth. She’s directly in front of him carrying a tray of coffees to go and bathing him in soft jasmine and the baby powder scent of moisturizer combating the lower than average humidity of the day. Her hair is charged with static electricity and for once he gets a clear impression of its style and length. It’s wavy, thick, falls over her shoulders and brushes her collarbones.

“And if I said I didn’t drink coffee?”

“I’d call your bluff. Didn’t you make it to six cups yesterday?”

“Your attention to detail is impeccable.”

She shrugs and he picks it up as a minute shifting of the air, a rustling of fabric, whispering of hair. “It’s in the job description.”

She takes a step closer and Matt has to force himself to stay rooted to the spot. She’s not carrying a weapon, at least not a gun. Guns are easy to sense—sulfur, charcoal, metal—as loud in his head as a scream for help. She could have a knife hidden somewhere he hasn’t sensed yet. One of those shock batons she used on Knives during their last encounter. She’s inching into his personal space. The doors chime behind him and he hears the annoyed clucking of another patron to whom he’s just an obstacle. His mystery woman balances the tray of drinks and reaches out with her other hand, touching him lightly on the back of his.

“Let’s go for a walk.”

Matt clenches his jaw to flatten the smile. “Let’s.”

He falls into step just behind her, hand on her arm above the elbow. The sidewalks are busy, weather’s dry and people are bustling to work. She leads him away from the heaviest traffic, opting for quieter walkways. There aren’t many parks in Hell’s Kitchen, so she settles for a bench outside a church. Matt can hear a cluster of fast heartbeats inside, children. Studying the sacraments. _“We all come into the world with a soul that is supernaturally dead,”_ the priest is saying, _“with only the natural endowments of human nature. The supernatural life, God’s personal and intimate indwelling, is absent from the soul.”_

In an alley on the opposite street, three men are buying drugs. Matt files overheard details away for later.

“Aren’t you wondering…” She’s first to break the silence.

 _Victory._ He interjects, voice even, hypothetical. “What the hell you’re doing here? What you want with me? Why you’ve been following me for three days?”

“What kind of coffee I like?” He can hear the laugh restrained at the edges of the question. She’s smiling, the strawberry of her lipgloss making him lightheaded.

The mystery coffee in the tray smells like warm milk from two different dairy farms, traces of soy and almond from a poorly cleaned steam wand and very strong espresso. Matt can’t help it, he grins. “Cappuccino. Wet.”

Mystery woman laughs and reaches for the cappuccino. “Your attention to detail is impeccable.”

Matt takes the organic black coffee. “It’s in the job description.”

“Are you actually wondering about those other things?”

“No.” He’s glad she can’t hear his heartbeat. “What’s your name?”

She doesn’t answer right away. “Natalie.” Heart beats lie.

“I’m Mike,” he quips.

The sound of fabric shifting as her torso turns towards him, “It’s Natasha.” Sounds like a grimace. But it’s true.

Matt leans back on the bench and flashes her a grin, “Matt. But you knew that.” He makes a show of offering his hand for her to shake. Callouses, strong grip. “You seem to know a lot about me.”

“Like I said, it’s part of the job.”

“And if I asked what that job was?”

She takes another sip of her drink and he senses the tilt of her head. They’re close enough maybe she’s reading him the same way he’s reading her. Respiration rate. He’s thankful for the glasses that hide his eyes. He’s never been good at schooling his own expressions.

“Need to know, confidential,” another shrug.

“Government agent,” he nods, “branch of the CIA? Don’t think their agents swing around town in leather catsuits, so, shadow agency? Secret ops?”

“Careful, danger boy, I don’t want to have to kill you.” It’s said as a tease, but he thinks there’s a real edge underneath.

“I’ll thank the taxpayers for the coffees then.” He reaches for the tray and shifts his cane to the other hand. Standing swiftly enough that she takes a moment to follow. He tips his head, turns away.

“I’m shipping out tomorrow,” she calls after him. Matt pauses and turns his head in her direction to show he’s listening. “I was hoping for some sightseeing before I go.”

Matt smirks, “not much for sightseeing myself. But if you don’t mind the blind leading the blind, you can meet me on the roof of my apartment, one AM.”

He turns back in the direction of the office, coffee’s already cold. Listens to the sound of her footsteps and steady heartbeat retreat in the opposite direction until he’s sure she’s really gone.

_Natasha._

#

It’s a good night for a run.

The weather is dry, nothing to reduce traction or obscure his senses. Just blocks of open rooftops, fire escapes, scaffolding. His knuckles creak as he stretches his fingers, hair at the nape of his neck brushing against fabric as he rolls it side to side. He’s already picked up Natasha’s heartbeat two blocks away, approaching him from behind. She thinks she’s being stealthy, and she is — her footsteps give nothing away — but he knows her now. Has her memorized as clearly as the topography of his borough.

She lands beside him lightly. When he doesn’t flinch, just turns his head with a smile, she lets out a huff of disappointment.

“Something tells me you already know New York pretty well.” He’s slipping into his gloves, bouncing a little on the balls of his feet to get his energy up.

“Nothing like having a local for a guide.” There’s that edgy smile in her voice, the one that pulls the corners of her mouth both ways and tightens over her vowels.  

“See if you can keep up,” he shoots over his shoulder, already breaking into a run.

It’s an easy leap from his building to the next, tenements butting up against each other. Section BC 503A New York building code restricts the height of the buildings so there’s only a few feet difference up or down. A single leap, a spin and he's landing in a roll to maintain momentum. Natasha lands beside him on her feet, glutes and hamstrings absorbing the impact. She springs forward just a step behind him and they’re off again.

Section 504.3, Rooftop structures. They vault around bulky roof tanks, air conditioning units that give off a high pitched hiss as they release clouds of hot air and bulkheads that reverberate with sound and light up Matt’s ‘vision’.

Natasha is not just nimble and athletic, she’s pure grace. Heart rate even, if a little elevated from her resting tempo. Her breathing smooth and measured to control her overall performance, skin still smelling like moisturizer and vanilla under the waxy coated fabric of her nighttime getup. He can hear each landing she makes, softly absorbed into the muscles of her legs. Each running step a light cushioned bounce on the balls of her feet, hardly making a sound. Matt rolls under a raised bulkhead and vaults over a small rooftop garden. Stay focused. She’s leading now, but he’s keeping steady at her four o'clock.

 _This way._ Doesn’t say it out loud, just veers left and leaps to a fire escape across the alley. Makes short work of the stairs even as Natasha sails overhead. How’s she getting so much further than him? She’s in front again, heading for an arterial road, too wide to jump. It’s the kind of thing he avoids. The roof on the next building is angled so he has to launch himself at its peak or risk losing his footing. Natasha’s somehow sailing past his head again, changing air currents and a zipping noise his only clues. Some kind of wire? Sounds like she’s flying, not jumping.

He follows her to the edge of the street where the avenue widens into four lanes, veers right at the last second because he’s _blind not suicidal_ and makes an unsteady leap across two lanes instead. For a moment there’s no input, just the feeling of air around his limbs as he windmills. He knows there's a metal balcony that juts over the sidewalk somewhere in front of him. Feels for the cold of the metal, the tang of it in the air. Reaching until his hands clasp the rail. He grits his teeth against the jarring of ligaments and tendons holding his shoulders in their sockets and listens a moment before pulling himself up. Natasha’s steady heartbeat and — _is she laughing—_ on the other side of the avenue. She made it.

He pulls himself up to the next balcony, _just eight feet from splattering on the pavement Matt._ And then to the roof. Rolls over the edge and lays there for a moment while his shoulders scream and his chest heaves with exertion.

The reverberating sound of metal on metal lights up the roof a few feet away. Grappling hook around the base of an antenna pole. Zipping of wire retracting into the base of the hook, then two booted feet landing softly on the concrete. _Feeling stupid yet, Matt? She has a grappling hook and you’ve got cargo pants and a scarf._ The absurdity of it makes him grin.

She crouches next to him and he breathes her in, lets her elevated heartbeat rush around him like heavy bass, his slowly returning to a normal drumming.

“Don’t tell me you’re…”

He reaches out and grabs her wrist, pulling her forward so she’s forced to straddle him to regain her balance. She pulls back but he holds her fast. “All the info you’ve been collecting on me, my name, my face — does your agency have all that in a file somewhere?”

Her heartbeat settles back into its normal rhythm. She’s good. Not concerned. Not worried what he might do to her. Confidence never wavering. “There’s a file.”

He pulls her arm to his chest, her upper body jerking down so that her face is close to his. A haze of strawberry lipgloss and musky perfume. A lock of her hair brushes his cheek, citrus shampoo, argan oil conditioner.

“What’s in it, Natasha? What do they have on me?” His grip on her wrist is relaxed now but she’s not pulling away, could break that hold in a second if she wanted to. She leaves it there and he feels the tactile impression of her heartbeat along with the sound when she finally answers.

“I filed a report after you crashed our arms bust. They know you exist, that’s all. Just another mask wearing vigilante in New York.”

“Everything else?”

“My own curiosity.” Her heartbeat is steady. Truth. She eases backward, not in any hurry to climb off him. He renews his grip on her arm. 

“And how do I know that’s not gonna’ change? That you won’t give me up to your bosses?” Matt leverages upwards on his elbows so they’re face to face again, trusting his mask to keep her from seeing how flushed he is at the contact.

“My bosses aren’t interested in street-level vigilantes. Keep away from the big players. Stick to being one of the good guys, they won’t bother you. You have a crime spree planned I should know about?”

“Not anymore.”

“Good.”

She leans down and kisses him, hungrily, sucking in his bottom lip. That gets his heart pounding again. Warmth rushing through his body, other sensations dropping away as he focuses every last bit of his enhanced senses on her. He doesn’t need to open his eyes to feel her body pressing against his, tight coiled muscle and the thrumming of her heart — _still not breaking 60 Natasha_ — the scents of her body enveloping him in a cloud, mixing with the scent of mutual arousal. Sweat and saliva. The particular smell that is _her_ skin. The products she uses, the PH balance of her sweat, the chemistry of her body.

“My turn.” Natasha whispers, hot breath against his cheek. “How do you do it?”

Matt smiles, rakes his teeth across her bottom lip. “Have to stay mysterious, Natasha.”

He releases her arm, reaching around to touch the small of her back, but as soon as he relinquishes his grip she plants her hands and rolls over his head. He follows her warmth with his face, smiling up at her like an idiot.

“Can’t tell if you like me or if you tricked me.” He grins. _Matt Murdock, get ahold of your facial expressions ASAP._

That whispering sound of hair against slick fabric as she shrugs. “Could be a bit of both?”

Matt rolls to his side and leverages himself back to standing. Brushing the smell of roofing tar off his clothes. He uses the impression of her body heat to orient himself, takes two steps closer so they’re only a few feet apart. Her heart rate is even, but she’s sweating.

“We should do this again, Matt.” It’s the first time she’s used his name and he’s back to grinning.

“When will you be back in New York?”

“Not sure.”

He fishes his burner phone out of his cargo pants and tosses it to her. “Put your number in, I’ll text you mine. Next time you’re in New York, no need to stalk me. You can just call.”

A pause while she handles the phone, then tosses it back to him without warning. He makes a show of plucking it out of the air without effort. Natasha closes the three-foot gap between them and plants another quick kiss on his lips, warm and inviting. It’s killing him.

“Next time I'll be expecting an answer, Matt.” And she’s gone.


	2. Lets Be Crass and Fall Together

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writer's block got me like, whoa. I feel like a fool. I somehow neglected to realize what this chapter (and, coincidentally, story outing) needed was a fight scene. Obviously. Hoping it reads better with this update!

Matt

It’s early still. More to do. Always more to do.

Matt lands on the roof of the six-story walk-up where he and Foggy still share a one bedroom apartment. He’s sore from three consecutive nights of beatdowns. No one’s been able to give him a lead on the burglar who assaulted his client. She’s hell-bent on suing the NYPD for mishandling her case and Matt’s not sure how to tell her you can’t lose evidence that never existed in the first place.

He’s mulling over the faint scent of potting soil he picked up in the victim's apartment when traces of bergamot and vanilla cloud his senses.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” He asks, rewarded with a huff of breath from Natasha.

“I’ll get you, one day.”

“We’ll see.”

She scoffs, “One of us will.”

“So what are you doing here, Natasha? You don’t call, you don’t write…” Having inspected the list of contacts in his burner phone, she hadn’t even left her number. Matt suspects she has his, but that only makes the long silence between them harder to bear.

Her catsuit creaks as she bends her elbows, folding her arms across her chest. “Just in town for a few days. Leaving tomorrow. Care for another tour?”

Should say no. He’s sore and his muscles scream. His arms ache from repetitive exertion. Still feels a twinge of betrayal that it’s been several months and she didn’t even call to say she was in town. But this, their dance, is a wanted distraction.

Their bodies leap and twist across rooftops, between fire escapes, reflecting between surfaces like parallel beams of light. She occasionally pulls the trick with the grappling hook, but Matt’s prepared. He leads them with confidence to the buildings he knows, paths he’s traveled time and again. Of course, he occasionally loses himself. His focus is divided between his own trajectory and the sensations of her body in line with his. The sounds of her clothes, her clipped, precise movements, her inhale and exhale. It takes him awhile to figure out that her hair is tied back. He only hears it when she’s flying sideways, the air whips her ponytail against her face, sticking to her lip gloss — a strawberry scented smile.

Matt’s senses plummet back into his own body. He’s headed for a wider street than would be ideal. Hasn’t made this jump before. Already in the air. Stretching his body out long and lithe, pointing every muscle in the direction he wants to go. He unlocks his elbows to prepare for a hard landing and then a roll. Makes it, barely, and has to stop and breathe on the other side. Natasha lands beside him and her voice is light, “Did you know you could make that?”

He grins, “I do now.”

The sound of Natasha’s chuckle is swept under a tide of sensations that make the hair stand up on the back of Matt’s neck. The sound of flesh against flesh and vibrations through bone. A gasp of pain and a terrified, muffled shriek. He’s on his feet in an instant, holding a breath he doesn’t remember drawing. His concentration slips between buildings and follows the cold metallic tang of a fire escape into a musty, garbage-strewn alley. Five heartbeats, three of them elevated. Natasha’s hand hovers over his shoulder. “Matt?”

“Three assailants, two victims. A man and a woman. They’ve subdued the man, one of them is holding the woman at gunpoint and…”

“No time to waste.” Natasha slips in front of him, “ladies first.” She jogs casually to the front of the building, Matt understands the plan without having to be told. He drops as quietly as he can from the edge of the roof to the railing on the top level of the fire escape. Hand over hand lowers himself down the railing and then drops to level four, willing the metal structure not to give away his location with a groan or creak. He can hear Natasha’s grappling hook in the distance, she lands on the sidewalk near the mouth of the alley.

“Hey, boys, wanna add one more?”

Three heartbeats that ratchet up with surprise. Two leveling off again when they see a woman walking towards them slowly, arms raised. Matt drops to the third landing of the fire escape, begins the descent to the second.

“Turn the fuck around lady,” from bad guy one. He’s big, densely muscled and taking up a lot of room. Doesn’t have a weapon but his heart rate is the steadiest of the three.

“Can’t do that.” Natasha shrugs her shoulders, her hair whispering against her back.

The two hostages huddle together in the muck. Bad guy number two — the jittery one whose resting heart rate is a mystery — is, of course, the one with the gun. Matt hears the vibrations of his trembling hands through the metal of the weapon. He swings the gun in a wild arc between Natasha and the woman huddling at his feet. Bad guy number three is tapping something against his leg. Matt picks up on the clicking of metal against metal, he’s wearing multiple rings on his right hand and the object he’s swinging lazily around his feet is an aluminum bat.

“We ain’t gonna ask you again,” Jitters finally makes up his mind and trains the gun on Natasha.

“Told you. Can’t do that.” Natasha shrugs again, radiating characteristic calm. Matt drops silently to the first-floor landing. His arms are burning under his own weight. He swings his lower body backward. “Not until my friend is in position.”

Matt swings forwards, then back… just as the bad guys are turning towards him he points every muscle and leverages off the fire escape, body like an arrow from a bow. He hits bad guy two in the chest with both feet and they go down to the pavement. Bad guy splays, gun flying from his hand, and Matt rolls into a landing. Natasha has already sprung towards bad guy one. Matt plants his hands and swings his body around to kick jitters in the jaw, knocking him back to the pavement hard. Out of the game. Matt crouches, then follows the scent of gunpowder to find the discarded weapon. He picks it up long enough to eject the magazine and throw the two pieces in opposite directions.

The song of the aluminum bat slices the air in two. Matt ducks and bad guy three lurches forward with misplaced momentum. Matt drops to his forearms and kicks back, knocking bat-guy backward into a brick wall. Bat-guy grunts with frustration and takes another swing. Matt ducks — doesn’t realize his mistake until the aluminum collides with the metal of a dumpster and the entire alley erupts in fireworks.

He cries out and covers his ears, dropping to his knees as though he’s been hit. For a moment, everything is too loud. Too sharp. Too much. Every detail of the alley, of his assailants, of the shivering hostages — every detail is competing in Matt’s brain for the same space. He smells motor oil, rainwater, old pizza grease, alcohol, discarded cigarette butts, vomit and piss mingling with plastic and garbage. Six heartbeats all marching at different speeds stomp through his head — an extra thrumming sound that he realizes is his own — too fast, too close. He can hear his blood pushing into his fingertips and toes then cycling back. He can hear mice scurrying away from the commotion, buzzing flies and garbage shifting in a breeze. He can hear Natasha’s arm muscles drawing back as she lashes out with her grappling hook. The zipping sound of the wire and a metallic clang as it wraps around bad guy three’s wrist and wrests the aluminum bat out of his hand. It flies backward and the guy shrieks with rage and pain as the cord cuts into his skin.

Matt springs back into action, hits bad guy three twice in the solar plexus and then decks him when he doubles forward.

Natasha’s quiet footsteps splash through the puddle of motor oil as she makes her way towards Matt. He identifies bad guy one — the big one — face down in the dirt, heartbeat matching rhythm with his unconscious buddies.

Matt turns towards the remaining too-fast heartbeats, huddling on his right. “Get somewhere safe and call the police.” He growls, voice more rough than he intended. It has the right effect, the hostages help each other to their feet and scamper off into the night, glancing over their shoulders only once. Natasha places a hand on Matt’s arm.

“And now you’ve seen New York,” he grumbles.

“Hmm,” her voice is light, betraying none of the physical exertions of the last five minutes. Matt can smell the light coppery scent of broken capillaries in her cheek, a smear of strawberry lip gloss next to her mouth. She touches her lip experimentally. “You know, once you’ve seen one dark alley you’ve really seen them all.”

“How ‘bout The Hudson at night?” Matt turns towards her, catching her hand as it slides away. He tugs her towards the fire escape. “It’s a hell of a sight. Or, so I’ve heard.”

They race to an unspecified finish line, a vanishing point marked by heaving chests and muscles crying for more oxygen. They’re near the bank of the Hudson, side by side on the rooftop of a low rise building that pulses under their feet with activity. The ground floor is home to a few restaurants and a nightclub. The music starting to reach fever pitch as night dwindles. Heartbeats racing with passion, excitement, joy — and the occasional upper. Sweat mingles with alcohol and vomit and perfumed bodies. It’s not unlike a crime scene. Not unlike an alley after dark, after a sputtering burst of violence. Matt’s never been one for this kind of ‘nightlife’ but it feels good, tonight, being near something that vibrates and hums with life instead of death.

They listen to the music go shrill and then drain away, the club patrons spilling into the darkened street to a line of waiting cabs. Matt perches on the Eastern edge of the building on a narrow ledge a few feet up from the roof, his body turned towards the water. He dangles his feet into the alley, feeling like a kid perched on the end of a dock. Natasha stands behind him. He spends a few futile moments wishing he could read her facial expressions. She could be studying him — or the view. “I had a question for you.” She asks finally, her voice pitched a little high. A contrived version of the one she uses to tease.

Matt recalls their previous conversation, it’s still tabbed open in his brain. He spends more time than he cares to admit playing those memories back and forth, going over the sensation of her smile, the lilt of her laugh, the steady drum of her heart. “About how I do … what I do?”

Her body heat drifts and she appears at his side, balancing in a precarious crouch on the same narrow ledge. “What do you see — out there?” slight movement of the air as she gestures towards The Hudson.

Matt considers. He hasn’t had to explain his senses before, but he’s given the explanation some thought. What he would say to Foggy. What he should have told his dad. “You know when you put a shell to your ear and hear the sound of the ocean? That’s what the Hudson sounds like from my apartment,” he starts, tilting his head. “This close, it’s like standing in a  boat in the middle of a storm. There are millions of insects all over it. Mosquitoes, flies, dragonflies. Each makes a different noise relative to its size. There’s fish in the water, but they’re more like vague impressions, and just near the surface. The water’s moving, it’s churning, every ripple is a sound. But it’s also temperature. Colder than the air and the structures around it. Don’t get me started on the smells,” he wrinkles his nose. _Sewage. Bacteria. Rust. Motor oil. Rotting garbage._ “Above the river, the ground temperature is low and the air temperature is dropping. Dawn’s not far off. The city is relatively quiet, soft snoring. Heavy breathing. Most of it slow in sleep like the whole city is just a noisy roommate sleeping in the next room. During the day it’s more like being dropped into the middle of a nightclub. It’s all shades of red, light and dark based on how… loud the sensations are or how hard they are to block out. It all comes together to make a sort of… world on fire.  If I focus I can dial up or down specific elements. Like, if I wanted to concentrate on the impression of a single dragonfly landing on a bobbing soda can.”

It’s quiet for a moment. Matt focuses on Natasha’s breathing. He closes his eyes and inhales the layers of her scent, her radiating warmth, the damp of her breath still carrying traces of the sandwich she had for lunch…  

“So, super senses?” She nudges him gently with her shoulder.

Matt grins, “If you want to be crass, ya, ‘super senses.’”

“Guessed as much,” she teases. It’s real this time. A voice like honey. “So when the bat hit the dumpster…”

“Really loud noises — lots of vibrations, sound waves. It can be disorienting. Painful.”

“So no fourth of July celebrations for you?”

“I attended a parade -- once.”

“Just once,” she observes, facial muscles contracting in a smirk.

“Now you solved the puzzle, you still coming back?” He tries to sound casual, isn’t as good at it as she is.

“Don’t worry Murdock.” She lowers herself from a crouch, feet dangling next to his feet. Hip pressed against his hip. “There’s always a puzzle when you meet someone. That’s just surface level stuff. Putting the pieces together gives you a picture, like their outward appearance. But people are more complicated than that. Even the least complicated people — the ones who are born, never leave their hometown, maybe have their hearts broken a few times, get married, die — even they might take a lifetime to figure out. I get the feeling you’ve got plenty of riddles left for me.”

“And you, me.”

Natasha shakes her head, the end of her ponytail swings and tickles his neck just above the edge of his cotton henley. “You can try, wouldn’t be the first.”

Matt rocks towards her, returning the playful nudge, “Are you going to answer my question now?”

Her shoulders lift, “Seems fair.”

“Who do you work for, Natasha?” He doesn’t really expect her to answer, holds his breath when she does.

“Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcement and Logistics Division,” she rattles it off in half a breath, muscles around her mouth constricting in a smile.

He cocks his head, “SHIELD? Never heard of it.”

“Forget you did. They’re extra-military. Counter-terrorism. Intelligence. Answer to the World Security Council.”

“Shit. Big guns?”

“The biggest. Or at least, better hope they are.”

Matt thinks of billionaire Tony Stark flying around in his fancy killing machine, thinks of the bigger killing machines built to deal with Tony Stark. Cause and effect. Equal and opposite reactions. “It seems like the guns are always getting bigger.”

“That would be because they are.”

Days are long in the summer. It’s been a short night. Dawn already pokes lazily at yesterday's embers. To Matt, it’s a new flame. Warmth stirring the edges of the night. The reliable turning of the earth. A sensation he trusts as surely as Natasha’s ever-steady heart.

Matt plants his hands and leverages to stand. Taking a few careless steps along the narrow ledge, finding his balance. Natasha doesn’t move, regarding him.

“I should get back to the apartment,” he says over his shoulder. “Have a day job to get to.”

“Time for one more question?” She stretches her arms over her head. Shoulders rotating in their sockets, muscles and skin pulling taught. Matt processes the sound of her body moving against the tight, waxed fabric of her catsuit, fibers straining.

“When do you sleep?” He interjects with a small smile.

“Sleep?” She laughs, standing. Her ponytail is swept over her shoulder by a breeze and he inhales the scent of her shampoo. She takes a step towards him on the ledge, creaking fabric and taught graceful limbs.

“OK. One more.” He’s not sure what she’ll ask, blearily aware of the fact he might be unable to say no with her body so close. He’s too aware of her mouth, small and pouting. Wet and _strawberry_. He tries to conjure up an image of a strawberry, knows that is what red looks like, imagines it's the same colour as her mouth. He reaches up and wipes the smear of strawberry off her cheek with his thumb.

Natasha takes another step, close enough now he can feel the wavering impression of her warmth. Taste her perfume. “SHIELD is recruiting enhanced individuals for a special team up.”

Shit. His breath catches, has to measure his exhale and focus on his balance. Her body gives nothing away, is she really going to ask… “I know you’re used to dealing with street-level crime here in The Kitchen, you need more training if you’re going to step up to something bigger— but if you wanted to... “

“No.” His voice leaves no room for maneuvering. Harsh, clipped. His heart is doing an enthusiastic drum roll and his body temperature just spiked. He would very much like to sit down. He can hear his father's ghost, _no fighting Matty, you know better. Using your fists ain’t no way to solve a problem. You gotta be better than your old man.’_

“Care to offer an explanation?”

Matt grimaces. Shakes his head. His hands are hovering near her shoulders and he feels them lift in another shrug. Still no change in her heart rate. Was she expecting him to shoot her down or did it phase her that little? His chest swells with appreciation. Things get uncomfortable, she oversteps — despite everything she knows about him, she backs off and doesn’t ask twice.

“My turn to _answer_ a question.” Natasha sighs heavily, overdramatic. Diffusing the tension.

She’s in his arms in a single calculated jump. He takes her weight, surprised, and almost overbalances off the side of the building. She wraps her legs around his waist and he feels the vibrations of her almost silent laughter against his chest. “Secret is, I don’t sleep.”

Damn her, he laughs. Holding her is easy like his body knows it's been missing a piece. She puts her strawberry mouth over his — wet, heady, open.

Natasha

They crash into the apartment together, a tangled mess of limbs.

“Foggy’s not here.” His voice is low and rough, heavy.

“I know.” She bites the soft flesh below his jaw, rakes her teeth along his adam's apple and kisses back up the rise of his throat. She timed this visit. Wouldn’t do to be interrupted.

They fall through the window before it’s fully opened, Matt braces himself with one arm and pulls her down on top of him with the other. It’s uncharacteristically clumsy for both of them. She catches the side of an armchair and manages only to bruise a knee in her effort to straddle him. The absurdity of it makes her laugh, a husky, rough laugh that’s wet with anticipation. The sound of it makes Matt smile drunkenly from under the mask, a lopsided grin that reveals all of his ungentlemanly thoughts.

The apartment is dark, he doesn’t need a light to see her and she doesn’t care. She pulls the mask off his face, takes a moment to enjoy his expression. His lips parted and wanting, his eyes wide and glassy. She reaches out and takes a fist of his wild brown hair in her hand, pulls his face into the light so she can find the edges of his mouth to plant her teasing kisses.

It’s cold from the open window and when his fingers find the zipper on the catsuit her skin rises in a million tiny bumps. His hands tremble as they slip under the fabric, slipping it off her shoulders and freeing her breasts. Firm and calloused hands cup her there before trailing down the V of her torso to the base of the zipper. There are scars on her abdomen. He circles them with the tip of his index finger, feeling the puckered skin. She watches his face, the way his head tilts, his eyebrows furrow. How long until he has a map of old injuries to match? Natasha bites her lip and pulls his hair, forcing his head back.

She slips her arms out of the neoprene sleeves. Torso free, she wraps herself around him and breathes in the base of his neck, inhaling the scent of mild olive oil soap and fresh sweat. Her hands claw around to his back and begin to work his shirt up his shoulders.

Matt grips her ass and leverages up to sitting, letting her struggle the shirt over his head. Her back arches, he nuzzles his damp, scratchy face into her chest, traces her collarbone with his mouth and plants wet kisses along the bone to the hollow of her throat. Natasha bites his earlobe, licks up the curve of his ear, feels his whole body shudder and rise to her. She trails the stubble of his jaw with a soft touch. Kisses up his chin and tastes the edges of his mouth — slick with saliva and the eager darting of his tongue — then savours deeply of his greedy, wanting mouth.

Matt grabs her shoulders firmly, carefully extracts himself from the tangle. He pulls her to her feet and she pushes him backward hard. He falls onto the futon and the whole thing skids two inches and hits the wall. He’s already struggling out of his pants, head tilting to follow her as she paces, cat-like, across the living room. When he’s naked, she lets him remove the bottom part of her suit. His hands slide the fabric down her legs, trailing her thighs and cupping her calves. He traces a teasing line up the back of her legs to the bottom of her ass and grabs her, pulling her to him so she has to straddle his open legs. She cups the back of his neck, kisses his throat. He reaches up and loosens her hair. It spills over them like a curtain, hiding them from the room, from the night, from the world.

She closes her eyes and gives herself over.

#

When dawn finally breaks, bright and full, it paints the sliver of New York she can see through the East facing window as garish as a remembered dream. Natasha allows herself a moment of contentment. Matt is stirring next to her on the floor. His left leg creeping out from under the blanket they pulled down from the futon, his right leg twitches under her left thigh. The rise and fall of his chest is a steady movement against her left side, the _lub dub_ of his heartbeat a safe, calming sound against her ear.

It’s a moment, she thinks. But it’s real. She closes her eyes and wills herself to remember every detail.

Leaving is easy. Practiced. Staying would be harder. 

Matt reaches for her and she squeezes his hand before letting go. Her suit is a limp bundle on the floor, her hair tie is missing. She slips into her clothes, listens to Matt sit up and move around. He pulls on a pair of sweatpants and plants himself next to the open window, arms folded across his chest.

“Is this because I didn’t want to join your team?” His smile is warm, open. His unfocused gaze drifting lazily around her.

Natasha puts her hand on his bare chest, leans close to inhale the aroma of sex and sweat and _Matt._ She leaves a soft kiss on his lips, whispers “Stay safe out there,” and ducks out the window.

  



	3. Come Out With Me Tonight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Matt and Nat deal with the fallout in their lives, and in New York, after The Incident.

Matt

* * *

 

“Will you come out with me tonight?”

A whisper against his collarbone. Her lips disturb the fine hairs on his throat, her breath sinks into his skin like a balm.

Every night she steps through the open window, she asks.

The open window is a small freedom Matt takes very seriously. After The Incident it’s weeks before Foggy eases off his around the clock observation. Matt’s so closely watched he’s not even making it out for patrol, not that he’s in any condition to do so. Even when Foggy’s at work Matt’s phone chimes every few hours, Foggy, Foggy, Foggy, like clockwork. Matt swipes ignore and dictates back a curt text — _I’m fine. Still fine. Aren’t you in a meeting?_

Early week three, Foggy’s mother calls from Ohio and suggests he come for a visit.

“It’s been months since we saw you, Franklin,” Anna’s voice purrs down the phone line.

“Ma, I can’t leave right now, OK. I’m needed here.”

“You can’t hold him hostage forever,” she tells him sweetly.

“And what if something happens, what if…”

“You can’t live your life waiting for aliens to fall out of the sky. You can die any day of the week Franklin, and so can your mother. Visit.”

So Foggy begrudgingly agrees to go. He spends four days in Ohio and on the last day, there’s a tap at the living room window. Natasha spills over the sill, her harried kisses and slightly raised body temperature spelling _relief_. Matt can’t say much at first, he wrestles down the impulse to yell, to shout, to curse. He feels strangled by the cloud of her perfume. Bludgeoned by the beating of her heart. Chafed raw by the closeness of her skin. Then she holds him. Throws her arms around him and squeezes, like she’s so glad to see him, surprised to find him still here. He hesitates, returns the embrace with vigour.

Matt catches Natasha’s heart rate spike when she undresses him. It evens out so quickly, he can’t really be sure what it means. She gives no other indication that she’s surprised or bothered by the bandages or the new scar. Direct energy weapons are a lot of fun. They hit hard — a small enough surface wound seared hot into the flesh, everything underneath melting together and bubbling to the surface before exploding outwards in a gooey mess of human viscera. Matt was lucky, they told him at the hospital, just grazed. Nerve endings fried so that the most painful parts of the injury were the second and third-degree burns on either side of the three-inch trench seared between his eight and ninth ribs.

There’s more to it than the new scar, but Matt is putting a concentrated effort into not thinking about anything else. He isn’t ardent to relive the helplessness or the guilt that still rises at the back of his throat when he overhears Foggy’s heart beating _worry-worry-worry_.

Thankfully, Natasha doesn’t ask any questions. In return, Matt doesn’t mention that all this time she’s had Tony Stark and Steve Rogers on speed dial. That her team of ‘Avengers’ swooped out of the sky just in time to save the day from an invading force of — of all things — aliens from outer space. From Matt’s point of view, he’s being sensitive for her sake. Of course, not discussing The Incident is also a strategic move for self-preservation. He cannot handle another migraine right now.

When she asks him, “Will you come out with me tonight?” Matt inhales the musk of her perfume and the damp of her breath and kisses her very tenderly on the forehead right over the spot where he can sense the still broken capillaries. The new skin knitting together. The still fading evidence. “Not tonight, ‘Tasha.”

When she slips into her catsuit and skulks back out the window into the dark, Matt pulls on the mask and goes out on his own.

When Foggy returns from Ohio to find Matt still alive he loosens the reins a little. Starts seeing his girlfriend again. Going out dancing at the club Matt can’t stand, going for drinks with college friends and staying out late.

Sometimes Foggy will send a text, he’s ‘ _going back to Sheryl’s for the night, call if you need anything!!_ _’_ or, he’s ‘ _crashing at a friends, see ya in the mornin’ bud! !_ _’_ He uses exclamation marks too liberally but Matt tastefully decides to accept that without comment. On nights like these, he leaves the window cracked. Just an inch. It’s good for his meditation, he tells himself, that’s all. Introducing more noises, he insists, to test his focus. Sometimes, just sometimes, Natasha comes ‘round.

She curls a lock of his hair around her finger, eyelashes moving against his jaw. “Will you come out with me tonight?” she asks.

Matt inhales deeply of her scent; the perfume, her shampoo, her skin, her sweat. He swallows it until it has a taste, savours it. Remembers it. “Not tonight.”

At least she seems to be enjoying her time back in the city. She won’t say exactly what brought her back and Matt doesn’t press. Any topic that might lead to SHIELD might lead to The Incident. He asks where she goes at night after leaving and she shrugs, yawns. Matt knows for a fact she’s already putting screws to an arms ring that’s been on his radar for months. She’s managed to capture and interrogate several of the higher-ups in the organization and sent a handful more to the hospital. Matt mostly hears about her exploits second hand. He’ll crack two skulls together and hear, “I don’t get it, we already told the lady, we thought she was with you?”

A guy still needs an outlet.

Nights like this, Matt goes out and he trails Natasha loosely through The Kitchen.

He doesn’t just mope around after her of course, he has his own litany of muggers and looters and smugglers to deal with. He follows the screams where they lead him, but there are whole parts of the city he has to avoid these days. City blocks off limits, still vibrating with an alien energy, still thrumming with SHIELD agents and government cleanup crews. Black vans, raised voices, remembered pain. So ya, he spends a fair amount of his time cleaning up after Natasha instead. Calling the police after she’s left a scene. Checking to make sure she isn’t being followed. She’s on the trail of a major arms deal. He has his own trails to follow, his own leads. They aren’t as interesting as hers.

On the fifth night of their cat and mouse, Natasha presses her lips into the hollow of Matt’s throat. She breathes deeply, exhales warm damp across his shoulder. Her lips part wetly, her tongue moves at the back of her mouth. Her heart beat tumbles in a free fall for a split second. He’s already formed the word at the tip of his tongue -- the requisite ‘no’ -- when she closes her mouth and traces a ribbon of tender kisses up his collarbone instead.

She doesn’t ask.

Matt kisses her temple as though she has. Her smooth skin is peppered with fine hairs, the curve of her skull an answer to the press of his lips.

Something about the way she’s dressing now. Pausing as she pulls the fabric of her suit over her hips, pausing as she shrugs it over her shoulders, pausing with her fingers on the zipper. Something in the way she hesitates for a long breath. Turns towards the window and trails a finger through the condensation on the sill, exhales a long stream of warmth between pursed lips. Something in the way she stands very still, one knee bent, face turned toward him. He knows. This is the last time she’ll be tapping on his window.

Maybe she’s returning to SHIELD, has a new mission. Maybe there’s another alien invasion happening tomorrow and Natasha just doesn’t know how to tell him. More likely, she’s finally had it with Matt’s inability to form the words, to tell her why he can’t dance with her. That he’s forgotten the steps.

She turns over her shoulder and the muscles of her cheek contract to one side in a half smile, the fine tissues of her lips wrinkling as they purse. He catches a whiff of the strawberry lip gloss he’s come to love. “See you around, Matt.”

He smiles back, doesn’t trust himself to speak her name.

He waits until the warmth of her hand on the window sill is faded to memory before he presses his palm to the wood. He should stay put. Foggy is at the bar with whatsername. Sheryl? He might go back to her place, he might come home.

Matt scribbles a note and sticks it to the fridge. Pulls on the mask and steps onto the fire escape.

The night is cool, heavy with promised rain. There’s a sports game on and the bars are full of people trying to put aliens and thunder gods to the back of their mind. Shouts are rising from six blocks East and Matt has to listen harder, really focus. Extend past the still chaotic buzzing of his protesting brain, beyond the shouts, beyond the faint wrongness of the changed skyline and the chaos of the cleanup crews that are working at all hours of night and day. There’s a particular thug Matt is looking to surprise tonight. He got the name on Tuesday, trailed him to his favourite bar Thursday. Patrick Doyle. Ties to an old smuggling ring that’s been out of operation for a few years, rejuvenated by The Incident, currently in Natasha’s crosshairs for God knows exactly what. Matt’s been saving Patrick for a special night, one when he needs to let off some steam.

Matt heads to the bar and perches on the opposite roof. He listens, waiting ‘till he hears Patrick’s deep, rumbling voice and knows for sure. Just a waiting game now. He gets lucky when Patrick stumbles to the back of the bar and finds the single stall washroom already occupied, staggers out into the alley to take a piss. When he’s done, he shakes himself off and pulls out his phone. Matt goes very still when the string of expletives starts up. He listens as Patrick starts dialing and holds the chunk of plastic up to his face.

“Ya, it’s me. Ya I know, I’ll be there. Keep it moving. Sure, they’re trying, that’s why we keep it moving ‘till it’s time. You seen any sign of the girl? Perfect. Good. 2:30. Ya, just send me a text when you get there.”

He fumbles his phone trying to get it back in his pants and curses when it falls to the slick pavement. Matt takes a steadying breath as Patrick bends to pick it up then drops from the roof right on the guys back. Patrick sprawls, chin cracking the ground.

Matt rolls a short distance, coming up in a practiced crouch. He kicks the phone further away and punches Patrick in the face — a hook, two jabs — while he’s still trying to get to his knees. Patrick stumbles backward then reaches for the gun stuck in his waistband. Matt grabs his wrist and twists until he lets out a strangled, pained gasp and the gun clatters to the alley. Matt kicks it away, holding the guy's wrist as he looms over him. Tall, straight and close, bending the wrist back and back.

“Where’s the pick up,” he growls.

Patrick spits up at Matt’s face, “Who tha fuck you think you are…”

Matt wrenches back on the wrist, feeling muscles and bones protesting under his hand. “The guy who’s putting you, and all your friends, in jail. Tonight.”

“Fuck you.”

Matt pulls, the bones creak and pop under the torque. Patricks opens his mouth to scream and Matt covers it with his gloved hand, letting nothing but a strangled hiss escape.

“Shit.” Patrick slurs when he’s released.

“Where’s the pick up.”

“Fucking hell, man.

Matt grabs both sides of the guys face. He lines his wrists up and increases the pressure, takes in the acrid smell of Patrick’s breath, the tachycardic slosh of his heart, the grinding of his molars and sucking of his adam’s apple as it bobs helplessly in his throat. “You want to keep your head, tell me where.” He squeezes, starting to twist slightly so that Patrick's pulse jumps again.

“Fuck! Fuck! They’re gonna text me the dock number at 2:30, OK! No one’s allowed to know before then!”

Matt releases Patrick's head to the pavement with a shove while he retrieves the phone. Touchscreen. Less than ideal. He pockets it.

“Go to the fifteenth precinct and turn yourself in.”

“Fuck you, man.”

Matt flips, kicking the guy in the side of the head hard enough it cracks against the brick wall beside him. Lights out. Patrick goes limp to the wet pavement.

Can’t get the exact location from the touchscreen without help, but whatever is happening is at the docks and Matt has a rough window as to when. He finds a building high enough up to provide a good vantage point. Focuses, cuts out Hell’s Kitchen at his back and turns a spotlight towards The Hudson. It’s a quarter after two, most of the docks are empty at this hour, even the pier’s beyond the industrial area, the ones with fancy restaurants that look over at New Jersey for a laugh.

There’s a stirring at the edge of Matt’s perception, he strains harder to pinpoint the source. Vehicles, large ones, vans or trucks. They’re packed solid with cargo, heavy wooden crates that slide slightly left to right and front to back. Three vans, three drivers, two passengers. They’re winding towards a warehouse at the tail end of the docks, jutting out at the river and backed by a shipping yard dotted with cranes and containers. More people waiting, four, five?

“Don't tell me this is where you take all the girls?”

Matt whirls with his heart between clenched teeth.

Natasha’s eyebrows creep up and her forehead wrinkles. Her heartbeat does that two beat escalation that, for her, sounds almost like surprise before it settles back to its normal rhythm. She doesn’t smile. “Jumpy?”

“I thought…” Matt swallows it, all of it. Shakes his head. Of course, she’s here. Her interrogation is what got him the first crumb on the trail he followed to get here.

“This is my last night.” She steps up beside him and leans on the retaining wall where his hand is clenching the cement for support. He loosens his fingers when he realizes his arm is screaming from the tension.

“I know.”

“You didn’t make it easy. Getting you here.”

He nods, like there’s anything normal about this situation, or any of the preceding ones. He pulls the smartphone out of his pant pocket and hands it to her wordlessly. Her fingers tap and smear against the smooth glass.

She nods towards the warehouse he’s already pegged. “That’s the one. How many?”

“Nine. What are they smuggling?”

“Weapons. Standard fare, semi-automatics mostly. But I’m concerned they’ve gotten hold of something a little more unusual.”

“Chitauri tech.”

She huffs a breath, “How did you…”

Matt grimaces. “They have it. I can sense it from here. It’s a high pitch whining, like rusty pipes. Like nails on a chalkboard.”

“Gonna be a problem?” Her face is angled away, trying to give the impression she’s not hanging on his answer. She already suspects then, what he’s hiding from her.

“No.”

She doesn’t question him outwardly but he knows her enough he doesn’t mistake steady calm for indifference.

“They’ll be moving the crates from the vans to the warehouse, waiting for the buyer.” Matt reaches out again, senses the vans pulling into the lot.

“Text says the buyer is showing up at 3.”

“We could take these guys out first and wait for the buyer to show?”

“Nine guys are a lot of guys,” Natasha shrugs, doesn’t add ‘for you’ or ‘in your condition’. “We could wait and follow the buyer back to home base.”

“These people are going to jail. Tonight.”

“Wait for them to unload. Maybe the group thins out a little once the heavy lifting is done. We hit the lights, round them up, tag the merch, wait for the buyers.”

The vans pull up to the mouth of the warehouse where four people are waiting to unload. “Should make quick work of it. How do you want to enter?”

“I’ll go in the back, hit the breaker. On cue, you drop from above. I’ll circle ‘round to the front and head off any runners.”

Matt nods, takes a few deep breaths. Natasha’s warmth starts to fade from beside him. He reaches out and touches her forearm. “Hey.” When she turns back she’s a sunbeam on his face. He breathes in the strawberry and the musk. The cocktail that is Natasha makes his brain foggy and numb like a heady drink. “Thanks.”

His hand drops, he’s not sure what he’s thanking her for. Manipulating him? Lying to him? Hovering on the edge of the picture while he pieces himself back together? Even so, he’s sincere. She must hear it in his voice, he picks up the edges of her answering smile.

Natasha

* * *

 

“Will you come out with me tonight?”

His heart lurches under her right ear. His carotid artery labours in his throat, ribbons of muscle standing out suddenly as he works his jaw around an answer. He bends his head down, shading her from the moonlight, and kisses her temple. A soft, lingering touch against the yellowing bruise and the new flesh still knitting three weeks after The Incident.

“Not tonight, ‘Tasha.” He’s taken to shortening her name. She isn’t sure if it’s sweet, or if he can’t bring himself to say it in full. Is he upset with her? Mad that when shit hit the proverbial fan she didn’t call? That when aliens dropped out of the sky she didn’t do enough? Maybe he regrets not joining when she asked. None of it quite sounds like Matt, the man who leaves his window open at night, waiting for an assassin to step through.

She’s not surprised by the bandages. Not shocked by the red, angry skin, gleaming with a waxy sheen, puckering around his ribs. He’s the kind of person who chastises you for carrying an umbrella when the forecast says rain, _it’s beautiful,_ he’ll say _, the sun is shining._ Better believe he has one stashed somewhere though. He’ll charge into the black when the world falls apart but can’t admit he lacks faith in its ability to hold itself together.

So she’s not surprised he said no to her but still fought.

Something does surprise her.

He keeps swallowing the words. The questions. Matt keeps himself from pacing and yelling by squeezing her tightly to his chest. Like he just wants to believe she’s real, everything else is too much. He opens up his arms to her like nothing has happened in the several months they’ve been apart, like the whole world doesn’t know who she is now. Her face is still in the newspapers, she had to dye her hair black when she came back to New York. Then there’s the way he grimaces when the sirens start up three blocks over, grits his teeth and pops an aspirin, pretends the simulated gunfire on the television downstairs isn’t keeping him awake.

It surprises her when he says no. No, he won’t dance with her.

 

“Will you come out tonight?” A week after that first night and she’s back on the futon with Matt sprawled over her legs. His cheek rests against the curve of her stomach, he’s making small circles with his finger against her thigh, her skin is covered in tiny answering bumps, his touch raising gooseflesh.

His jaw works against her belly, his fingers stop circling and he grips her thighs instead. Knuckles white. He shifts like his ribs are bothering him, even though she knows his expression isn’t one of pain.

“Not tonight.”

She nods, folds herself so she can kiss him on the forehead reassuringly. His hair is grimy and smells like sweat.

 

She sidles up to Sheryl at the bar later and pushes another cocktail towards the blue-eyed blonde.

“Foggy’s been devastated, you know, he’s just wrecked.”

“God, I can’t imagine.” Natasha sighs dramatically, taking a long sip so that Sheryl feels obligated to fill the beats between bass notes in the music.

“Ya, poor guy. Can’t say I’ve really connected with him, he’s so quiet. But Foggy really loves him. It’s been so hard to watch him go through this.”

“What can you do?” Natasha shrugs, moves a little closer. Her body angles forward to form a conspiratorial bubble between them. She tilts down her head, “What happened though, really, you say the guy is _blind_?”

Sheryl takes the bait. She bites her lip and Natasha understands they’re done feigning compassion. It’s time for the nitty-gritty details, the morbid curiosity that follows calamity.

“Foggy says he was right there when it all happened, can you imagine, a blind guy in a war zone like that? He was taking the train and it stopped in the tunnel, all of a sudden,” Sheryl makes a sweeping motion with her hands that almost spills her drink, “lights out.”

Natasha nods, “I heard a lot of people got stuck underground.” A lot of people had gotten stuck in the metro tunnels. Of course, they’d been safer underground than the people stuck in office towers and coffee shops above. Most of the commuters waited it out and were rescued hours after the hole in the sky closed up. Of course, Matt didn’t wait.

“Foggy says he climbed out of the train and made his way to street level on his own.”

“A blind guy?” Natasha leans in further so Sheryl is a breath away and they’re staring wide into each other's eyes.

“Ya, he just started wandering the streets in the middle of that shitstorm -- trying to find Foggy! Can you believe it? So devoted to each other, these guys, I’m a bit jealous.”

Natasha offers a half smile that says, _‘boys’_.

“So when things cleared, Foggy found him wandering up 53rd, disoriented, hurt. Things were just — chaos. Ambulances couldn’t get anywhere near them. It took them ages to get to the hospital and then they spent four hours just waiting to be seen.”  

“God, that’s awful.”

Sheryl nods emphatically, “the staff completely ignored them until Matt passed out from blood loss in the waiting room. That got their attention. They kept him there overnight for observation, drugged him up, sent him home. Can you believe it?”

Natasha takes another sip of her drink and shakes her head mutely. No. She can’t believe that. She swirls the ice in her whiskey, eyes averted. “How bad was it?”

“Not really sure. Foggy doesn’t want to talk about it. Which I get, honestly, traumatic stuff. For everyone.”

Natasha nods again, jaw clenching, lips pursing. She’s thinking of all of the shit she survived. Of aliens raining down on Manhattan and Tony almost getting himself killed and Clint being compromised. She’s thinking of how it would have felt to survive all of that and then to find out Matt had quietly bled to death in the street below.

“Hey, hey.” Franklin Nelson, soft and blonde and immensely sweaty wraps his arms around Sheryl from behind and kisses the back of her head. Sheryl pulls a face at Nat, a wide-eyed half grimace. She has the decency to look guilty.

 

Natasha’s face, on the other hand, remains impassive several days later when Matt is asking her what she’s been up to all week. She shrugs, non-committal, and drapes herself over his shoulders to plant a trail of kisses along the back of his neck.

“Come out with me tonight,” she whispers into the curls of his hair. “You need to _dance_.” He squeezes her wrist, his index finger pressing into her radial artery.

“Not tonight.” He whispers back.

He wants to know what she’s doing in his city. He probes very gently like he’s not sure how far to take the conversation before it reaches terminal velocity. Natasha gives him nothing back, and that’s how she gets him to follow her.

It doesn’t take much effort to leave a few baddies standing at each bust for him to ask his own questions. Or to get them screaming information at the top of their vocal range, easy for him to hear from two blocks south where Matt thinks he’s disguised in the shadow of a water tower. It isn’t hard to let them follow her four blocks so Matt can make himself useful by dropping onto their heads from a fire escape.

She doesn’t have to see it happen to know how it plays out. She follows up a few times with the baddies, as soon as they see her they’re rolling their eyes. “Shit, we thought we were done with this. We’ve already told you and your buddy in the black mask…”

She has to plan it just so.

First, scare the arms dealers into speeding up their schedule. Make them sloppy. Make them desperate. Play it cool and quiet and listen while they scramble like ants securing a prime crumb of food.

Next, a bouquet of flowers with a note on legal stationary swiped from Nelson's firm. The flowers arrive at Sheryl’s desk just after lunch on the day of the arms deal. Natasha sends him a suggestive message from her Facebook account and waits for the window to crack.

She tumbles into the apartment and finds Matt more morose than usual. He offers her Thai food and they eat it together on his living room floor. He sips green tea, steam rising in a little cloud that might as well be the dread perpetually hanging over his head these days.

After they’ve tumbled onto the futon, peeled each other out of their clothes, she presses her lips into the hollow of his throat and exhales into the soft, stubbly skin there. She needs this to happen just right, needs him to follow the trail she left or everything will blow up in her face. So she doesn’t ask this time. She doesn’t even ask. She just trails kisses up his collarbone and tries, for a moment, to forget why she’s here. Forget the carefully laid plans. Tries to recapture the feeling of a girl alone with a boy on a musty futon next to a pile of takeout. He kisses her. He smells so good. Like his olive oil shampoo and her own perfume rubbed off on his skin. His hair is soft and curls around her finger in a neat little ringlet when she trains it in a circle. His body is warm, solid beneath her.

Natasha steps back into her catsuit and prowls to the window. She hesitates, watches him listening to her, his head cocked and his lips pressed together so they’re thinned out a little. Leaving is getting harder. She shouldn’t have drawn this plan out so long. What was supposed to be a quick, _oh good, you didn’t die when Manhattan got rained on by aliens_ , has already turned into a three-week sojourn. It’s kept Natasha busy, at least. Now it’s coming to an end, has to, before it starts feeling too safe. Hopefully, it’ll work. As she zips up the front of the suit she bites her lip. Of course, it will work.

She pauses in the window to lay the last crumb of temptation, “See you around, Matt.”

She doesn’t need to watch to know he follows.

He doesn’t hear her approach over the rooftops behind him. Huh. Surprised again. For a second, she wonders if she’s miscalculated completely.

 

The warehouse is buzzing with activity when they approach. Natasha catches a drifting form overhead as Matt melts between shadows. She finds the rear entrance and delivers a brief shock from her bracelets to the electrical locks. The locks flicker and spark. With their electrical components disabled, Natasha makes quick work of the mechanical release. The door opens quietly, leading into a dark hallway with several rooms jutting off in either direction and a heavy door at the end opening into the storage area. The first room on the left is maintenance. Natasha locates the breaker and counts to twenty to ensure Matt’s had enough time to get into position.

Flip. Lights out. Shouting starts.

Back out the door she came through, she pauses to seal it behind her. No one's getting out this way. Around the side of the warehouse in a jog, she finds two guys making a break for it across the parking lot. Typical. From running to a slide, she takes out one at the knees, plants her hands and kicks the second guy in the face with both feet. He goes down while the first guy is stumbling. Natasha swings around and catches his shoulders between her legs, twists, sends him back to the concrete. A quick jab to the neck with her widow’s bite sets the first guy dreaming, a roundhouse sets the second guy to the floor where her boot heel is a messier sleep aid.

There’s a rat-tat of gunfire from inside the warehouse. A woman and a man emerge from near the vans and start running towards Natasha when they see their buddies unconscious. A flash grenade keeps them from seeing much else. Easy to get close and deliver the calculated strikes that drop them into la-la land with baddies one and two.

There should be one more. One more with the vans, four inside with Matt. Natasha sweeps the parking lot and comes up empty, decides he must have made it inside after all. She jogs back to the warehouse and pushes open the front doors in time to see her missing person added to Matt’s pile.

He looks good, silhouetted against the dark warehouse by the sliver of light from the door. Huffing for breath like maybe he hasn’t done this in awhile. Blood snakes down his face from a cut on his cheek. A little track of it running down the curve of his cheekbone and into the crease of his mouth. He spits. Turns to her with a bloody grin. “What, did you stop for a nap?” and it’s the most normal she’s felt with him since _the thing_.

“Don’t get cocky, danger boy.”

She stalks past him, “Let’s tag these quickly before the buyers show up.”

Matt does that thing where his head tilts slightly one way and then the other, tiny adjustments like an owl sensing its prey a field away. He runs his gloved hand over one of the crates. Natasha steps up to the first crate and leverages it open. The lid creaks and splinters then lifts away. Her brow creases. She reaches into the crate and moves packing pellets left and right. “Wait, Matt, something’s wrong.”

Matt is still moving away from her, he’s suddenly too far.

“Matt, the crate is empty.”

He tilts his head in her direction, considering. “I can sense the tech, Natasha. It’s here.”

She starts to follow, but her brain is going a mile a minute. She’s thinking of the Chitauri, swooping down on their blasted speeders and shooting their guns haphazardly into streets full of civilians. She’s thinking about what she wants to do when she gets her hands on the people selling Chitauri tech to weapons manufacturers. She’s thinking how wrong it is that the crates are empty when they’re supposed to be — according to every piece of the puzzle she’s picked up so far — brimming with the stuff. She’s moving puzzle pieces around and trying to come up with a new picture, one that explains what she and Matt are doing here at this moment, what they’ve walked into. Did she push them too hard? Did she tip her hand?

Natasha opens another crate and her frown deepens. Matt’s wandered further away. He stops in front of a crate sitting alone in the centre of the warehouse. A row of high windows on the side of the building is casting blocks of yellow street light in a row along the cement floor. Matt steps into one, yellow, steps out and disappears into blue shadow. He wraps his arms around the top of the crate and grunts as he leverages the lid to the side. It slides off, wood grating against wood, then thuds to the floor.

“Matt, do you have it?”

His head quirks left, he pulls off his glove with his teeth and reaches towards the crate, fingers hovering. “Ya. But they’ve done something to it.”

In the yellow light, Natasha watches Matt’s shoulders tense. His neck strains, his head swivels one way and then the other. He grabs the edge of the crate, legs locking under him like he’s afraid they’ll give away. Natasha closes the distance between them in a few long strides. His jaw is clenching so hard she can see the knotted joint.

“Hey,” she reaches for his arm and he flinches, breath releasing in a shaky huff. “Matt are you with me?” He nods, she can see beads of sweat on his upper lip. Natasha looks in the crate.

The tech is part of a Chitauri direct energy weapon, but they have, in fact, done something to it. It’s wired in on itself, thrumming with blue light, and there’s a six-part indicator that appears to be counting down.

Natasha grabs Matt’s forearm, is turning on her heel to run so fast he stumbles behind her and almost takes a nosedive before falling into step. He doesn’t need to be told anything, must glean the important information from the spike in her heart rate, body temperature, pheromones.

When she put the plan into motion, lured Matt here and lead him into the fray— it was not her intention to also get him blown up. Clint had insisted she remove that one from her date night repertoire. 

They’re almost at the warehouse doors when the crate explodes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I cannot tell you how glad I am to be posting this chapter. Really, I should have created a new fic but I figured I promised an update here. It took me awhile because I re-wrote this chapter FOUR TIMES. That's a lot of times for me. Trouble was, I started by writing everything from Matt's POV on the day of The Incident. Didn't work. Not for Matt and Nat. So now I'm left with all these headcanons about what happened but no chapter update. SO I re-wrote it and just dropped a lot of hints about what happened in my original drafts. Does it work? IDK. It also ended up being 10,000 words long. SO I've broken it up into two chapters! Sorry! The good news is it's all written, so I'll post the finale soon! As always, thanks so much for your comments and kudos, comments are love <3


	4. Who We Are

### Matt

The cue Natasha mentioned is the slight buzzing of electricity cutting out overhead. A sudden string of curses. A few anxious shouts. Matt drops from his position in the rafters and lands almost directly behind the thug he's determined is the biggest and scariest. This guy probably ate some of the other thugs for an afternoon snack. He’s also carrying a semi-automatic rifle. Matt relishes the split second after he’s landed and before he's noticed. When he’s still a ghost. “Boo.” He hits the guy so hard in the face when he spins that he goes tumbling into two smaller people, knocking all three of them through a stack of boxes and onto the cement floor.

Matt plants his hands on the crate where he’s crouched, swings out his lower body and kicks another thug in the face with both boots. There’s five smugglers total, one more than he anticipated but that’s not worrying. He leaps off the crates and lands on one of the smaller people, hits him three times and listens for a moment to make sure he’s down for the count. Big guy has struggled to his feet and is maybe adjusting to the darkness. He’s making a straight line for Matt who rolls to one side to avoid a clumsy strike from someone else, bobs, jabs, gets hit in the face by the big guy anyway. Big guy’s wearing rings, because of course.

Someone has the fabulous idea to open fire. Matt doesn’t mind. The muzzle flashes re-blind his opponents and, of the six of them, two are unconscious and Matt’s the only one who hears the bullets coming. He dives, rolls under big guys arm and uses him as a shield. Big guy goes down with three bullets across his midsection and Matt has the decency to feel guilty before he funnels that into rage.

Shooter flies backward, hits the cement wall with a thud that knocks the breath out of his lungs. Matt hits him hard in the face and he’s out. Matt retrieves the rifle, takes it apart and throws the clip as far as possible. Final guy lunges from behind and Matt ducks then grabs him around the middle and tackles him to the ground where another targeted punch leaves Matt the last man standing.

The warehouse door slides open and Natasha steps in, footsteps light and bouncy like she’s stepping over his windowsill. He can’t help it, adrenaline is lighting up every inch of his body and he hasn’t had a workout like this in months. Not even the screaming of his still bandaged side can stop him from enjoying the slight temperature spike in Natasha’s body that says she’s happy to see him. He grins, tasting blood from the cut on his face and not caring for a second.

“Don’t get cocky, danger boy,” she purrs as she passes, just close enough that the smell of her perfume mixing with the sweat of exertion crashes over him in a wave. He shakes his head to clear it, breathes to refocus.

The Chitauri tech is close. Now that he’s aware of it, it’s unavoidably loud in his head. Increasing in volume as he takes steps towards the source. Hard to pin down, hard to concentrate enough to say exactly which crate it’s in without following the sound. He takes two steps and has to stop, rest his hand on a crate he can feel is empty.

The last time he was this close to the humming, it was everywhere. Foggy has an ample taste for classic films. In college, they binged on horror movies. The Shining. The Exorcist. The Birds. He doesn’t have a real clear picture in his head of anything in those films, uses his imagination to fill in the gaps between Foggy’s narration and the dialogue. Wet sticky sounds, typewriter keys plunking, high pitched, too real screams. _A wall of blood is coming down from the elevator, it’s everywhere. A giant flock of seagulls is swooping down at her head. Gonna peck out her eyes_.

When Matt emerges from the echoey damp staircase ascending from the metro station on the day of The Incident, he is immediately set upon by what his brain helpfully supplies is a giant wall of blood crashing down from all angles. Except its fire and sound and electric energy that weighs in the air like an impending storm. A giant flock of seagulls swoops at his head, except they’re man-sized and made of a metal that doesn’t exist on this planet. Firing weapons and chattering to each other in an alien language. Screaming, guttural angry screams. Everything about them hums and flickers and vibrates at a frequency that deafens him.

Matt moves to the next crate.

Natasha is talking, saying something, what is she saying? She thinks it’s a bust. The crates are empty, nothing’s here. It’s definitely here. He’s getting closer.

The offending crate is in the centre of the hanger. Matt’s heart is hammering in his chest. The faster he confirms its location, the faster they get on with the plan. Tag the tech for SHIELD. Wait for the buyers. It must be almost three by now? His fingers dig into the crate’s lid and he leverages it to the side. It grates, like sandpaper, then topples with a thud to the floor. The crate is smaller than he expected, the tech is a small piece. It’s hard to focus on it this close, like trying to see something your brain doesn’t want you to. The closest thing Matt can compare it to is trying to see yourself in a funhouse mirror, whatever you manage to look at is distorted. His radar sense wants to bend away from it. He puts all of his focus into just eeking out the basic shapes. Has to pull his glove off and reach out a hand. He touches the metal. It’s warm. There are wires sticking out of the top. He never got a good sense of the Chitauri guns but he doesn’t think they’re supposed to have wires on top.

“They’ve done something to it…” he tells Natasha. She moves closer, but she isn’t looking in the crate. She’s looking at him. Her scrutiny makes the noise in his head worse. When she reaches for him, he flinches away and it’s all he can do to keep standing in the same spot.

“Matt, are you with me?”

He clenches his teeth — can feel the vibrations coming off that thing through his jaw — manages to nod even though he’s moments away from vomiting.

He remembers the moment the alien cornered him in the alley off 57th. Matt raises his hands, the alien is making sounds he doesn’t understand. It’s hovering, noise is coming from high up and air is swirling underneath where it should be standing. There’s electricity everywhere and thunder clapping in the sky over their heads. There’s gunfire and screaming. Real screaming. The kind that jolts him awake. The kind that never lets him rest. A building is coming down two blocks away and Matt can hear every single window shatter. The hair on his arms rises, the energy in the alley is a building static. There’s a low rumbling sound accompanying the sensations. Pressure on his eardrums increasing slowly, set to release. The alien is about to fire its weapon. Time doesn’t slow down when it pulls the trigger. Matt doesn’t escape.

He remembers the searing hot of the energy beam as it lances through his flesh.

Natasha’s hand is hot around his forearm. He can feel her heartbeat through the contact. Staccato. Detached. Characteristically Natasha even if the sudden spike says something else. She pulls him, hard, and he stumbles.

Of course it’s a bomb, he’s thinking as he finds his footing. That explains the wires nicely. The static in the room. The building pressure in his head. The heat at his back.

#

Sometimes, when he’s dreaming, Matt can see.

It’s a byproduct of those early years before the accident. A jumble of remembered images like the expression on his father's face he now recognizes is pride. Colours. Saturated and muted and obscured. The cramped kitchen where he did his homework, ate dinner, cooked pancakes with Dad is captured in his mind in shades of green. On bright days, when the sun is yellow in the window the green is light and spring-like. Like the back of a leaf held up to the sun. In the winter, when the shadows are long and night is close, the green is deep and dark like a moss grown over a grave. The street outside their walk-up apartment is red bricks and mottled grey cement. The details are starting to blur the way an object handled too often starts to dull and smooth along the edges. He handles the memories less and less, takes them out now only in dreams.

He’s walking down the narrow residential street where he grew up. His brain is filling in the details that are blurry when he’s awake. Matt can see the crack in the sidewalk one of the other boys filled with chewed bubble gum. Pink. The spray-painted fire hydrant. Red. The rain gutter clogged with damp, brown leaves. The smells are wrong. It should smell like the detergent they use in the laundromat on the corner. Like flattened cigarette butts and the different shades of lipstick pressed at the ends. Like the curry on the stove in apartment 2B. Instead, he can smell burning lumber. Musty cement. The iron rust of blood in the air.

His feet are too big for the sneakers he’s wearing. Matt can feel his toes straining against the canvas. His hands are too smooth and small to be his hands.

“Matt?”

Jack Murdock is standing at the end of the street. His hands are stuffed in the pockets of his black leather coat. In Matt’s memory, his father towers. He’s so big. His brown hair is sticking up like Matt’s does, utterly unmanageable. Hopeless. He turns towards Matt and his mouth splits in a big, toothy grin. His eyes are bright and brown like Matt’s eyes. His high cheekbone is a mottled yellow. His Dad’s bruises were accepted facial features, the same way other kids dads had mustaches. “Matty!”

“Dad!” Matt runs forward. He reaches out a hand but Natasha grabs his forearm and he’s yanked backward out of the dream.

“Matt, you’re with me?” Natasha’s voice sounds laboured, wet. Her hand is cold. She moves it to his hand and traces his fingers. His fingers twitch, then curl around hers.

They’ve fallen into the warehouse basement. There’s a fire roaring maybe 15 feet above, busy gutting the main storage area. The basement is littered with debris. Matt is laying on his side. The shoulder touching concrete is dislocated. His head hurts. Actually, everything hurts. The hand Natasha clutches is attached to the dislocated shoulder. Waking up his fingers lights a fire that races up every nerve and muscle from his fingertips to his brain. He plants his other arm and leverages to sitting too quickly. His head swims.

“Hey, easy. You hit your head.” Natasha still sounds far away, too quiet, too breathy. She’s lying just an arms length from him, a trail of copper smeared on the concrete says she dragged herself there.

“Wouldn't be the first time. You hurt?”

“Leg is broken,” she breathes out through gritted teeth. “cracked some ribs. Better than being a grease smear on the wall.”

Matt tries to probe the floor above them, senses recoiling from an oppressive wall of heat. The oxygen in the basement is rising to stoke the flames and ash rains down like snowflakes. “The thing burned so hot it went right through the floor…”

“Ya, before turning into a giant, hungry fireball.” Natasha grits her teeth and drags herself another foot. She props herself in a sitting position against some debris.

Matt pulls himself next to her, his hand trembles slightly as he reaches for her. She meets it with her own and guides it to her leg where he feels a swath of fabric tied midway up her calf. Sticky. He can hear the bone shifting as she struggles to exhale in an even, measured breath.

“I’ve had worse,” she shrugs.

“What can I do?” He feels around the wound, blood is still blooming, sluggish and regular, from beneath the makeshift bandage. Her foot rests at an odd angle to the shaft of her leg.

“How ‘bout we beat a quick escape?” She breathes, “Skip to phase two?”

“Phase two?”

“The makeup sex.”

“Didn’t realize we were fighting.” He squeezes her hand, he’s trying to determine their options. There should be a staircase somewhere leading into the basement. There are stacks of plastic wrapped pallets everywhere, some toppled from the explosion, some rising  to just below the ceiling. Matt’s sense of smell and taste are quickly being overwhelmed by smoke and soot but he can tell there’s a lot of metal in one corner of the room. A freight elevator maybe.

“Maybe we should be.” Natasha is watching him casually, like she’s not bleeding out and there isn’t a raging fire above their heads.

“Can you set my shoulder?” He asks, and while she manipulates his torso, “Why should we be fighting?”

Natasha has him stretch his arm 90 degrees from his body towards her. “I didn’t tell you I was working with Stark or Rogers. I didn’t tell you about the Avengers.” She grabs his wrist and gives it a firm tug, he grits his teeth as the shoulder pops back into the joint. “That hurt?”

He rotates his arm experimentally. It’s stiff and sore, better than screaming pain, he shouldn’t push his luck with it. Will if he has to. “You did tell me. You asked me to join.”

“I knew you had a problem with Stark. I knew you didn’t like the idea.”

“And you didn’t push it when I said no. I respect you for a lot of things Natasha,” he wraps her arm around his shoulders and lifts her into a bridal carry. Has to stand and breath for a few seconds when he gets to his feet. shift her weight until it’s bearable. “For that. For being an Avenger. For saving our city.”

“Then what changed?”

Matt struggles towards the back of the room, breathing through his nose and doing his best to ignore the pain in his shoulder. Natasha isn’t letting on if she’s in pain, but she must be. Her breathing is slow and even but he can hear the grinding of her teeth. “I did, I guess.”

He sets her down on a chair against the back wall. His senses are telling him there’s no staircase, just the freight elevator. Chances are it isn’t working. He hits the button just in case and nothing happens. No grinding of gears or mechanical sounds, the thing is shot to shit. The door is sitting half open, elevator on their floor. He squeezes through, reaches up as far as his good shoulder can stretch and touches the ceiling of the elevator experimentally. The metal is still cool, there’s a hatch at the top. He paces back out to Natasha.

“You see anything, ‘Tasha? Am I missing another door?”

She shakes her head against the wall, hair scraping against cement. “There’s a door, but it leads to the service hallway and I sealed the exit on the way in. We won’t get out that way.”

Matt bends forward and breathes, hands on his knees. It’s getting harder to get oxygen, his lungs are burning.

“Tell me what happened.” Nat whispers and Matt shakes his head, grinds his teeth. Stubborn to the last is the Murdock way.

“We’ll use the grappling hook.”

“Maybe you didn’t notice the flames?”

Matt shakes his head, “We’ll go up the elevator shaft. The freight elevator has two doors.”

“One inside and one out.”

“For loading straight from the docks.”

“Matt, tell me what happened?”

He paces a few steps away, the heat is everywhere now, pervasive. Crawling down his throat. Seething into his skin.

“I went out there, unprepared, in a fuckin’ suit and tie,” he laughs mirthlessly, doubles over again to catch his breath. “It was like the world was ending.”

“For awhile, it kind of was.”

“And I couldn’t help. All I could think of was Foggy being out in the middle of it. Everything was… too loud. I was…” he waves his hand in front of his face, “blind. I let myself be overwhelmed. I failed Foggy. I failed my city. I failed you.” That’s all he has. All he can muster. He shrugs, and there’s an apology there he doesn’t have the energy to voice. If Natasha hears it, she doesn’t say anything. She reaches out to him and he takes her hand.

“OK, danger boy,” Natasha leverages herself up with his help, holding her side. She hops once and bends at the waist to pick something metal off the ground. Passes Matt a crowbar. “Let’s get out of this death pit, OK?”

 

Matt doesn’t hear the heartbeats outside the elevator until it’s too late. He pries the external doors open and cool night air crashes in. He gags and coughs, his lungs protesting. Natasha spools her grappling line out a little, lowers herself gingerly to the dirt. Matt swings out and crashes less gracefully to his knees at her side.

There are sirens in the distance, he hears them first. Next, the approaching heartbeats of ten well built, athletic men and women accompanied by boots squelching through the gravel lot.  

“Buyers are here.”

“Matt,” Natasha sighs, “I had to do a thing.”

“A thing?”

“Backup plan. I made a call.”

“A call?”

“Ya, and you aren’t going to like it.”

He exhales a breath, defeated. “Tony Stark.”

“I have one of his responders in my boot, I activated it before you woke up. I’m sorry.”

“How long ‘till he gets here?”

She shakes her head against the wall. “I don’t know.”

Matt squeezes Natasha’s upper arm. “Do they have guns?”

“You can’t tell?”

“Heads a little blurry.”

“Ya,” she huffs, “they have guns.”

Matt gets to his feet and places himself between the buyers and Natasha. Get’s himself into a fighter's stance. Always get back up. Always. He buries the burning shame of a time when that wasn't true deep in his gut. Gimme your best shot. His head is swimming and he still can’t smell or taste for shit. If they’re pointing weapons at him right now, Matt’s a little fuzzy on that too.

A strange sound starts to build in the distance, like a jet flying low overhead. Except it’s really low, flying in close now and coming in fast. A drone? The air shifts, gravel skitters over the pavement.

“I suggest you nice folks get back in your scary black vans and sidle on home to whatever life of crime you’ve obviously been living up to this point,” a man’s voice, filtered and mechanical, somewhere close and… above them? “You have about two seconds to do it and then I start blowing things up willy-nilly. I’m crazy. Don’t push me.”

Heartbeats around them start to race.

“One...”

There’s a whirr and then something explodes somewhere to Matt’s left, he flinches but doesn’t lower his fists.

“Ah, I thought I heard his ego approaching,” Natasha mutters, her heartbeat is dropping out of its regular slow and into a dangerous kind of slow. Matt grits his teeth.

Before Tony reaches two, the elevated heartbeats crowding Matt and Natasha start to move away. There’s more scuffling of gravel under boots. Matt catches a few scraps of shouted conversation before the slamming of car doors and starting of engines. Sirens are starting to pull into the pier.  

“Hey, you two pals call for a lift?” Tony lands a few feet away and approaches with his hands extended like he’s entering a room of adoring fans. Matt gets the impression that’s how he enters every situation.

Natasha reaches out and Tony takes her hand. Matt tracks Tony with his head, trying to give the impression that he’s watching.

“You’ll get her medical attention?”

“Ya, you’re not coming? I can carry you both, I mean, you look like you could use some medical attention yourself. And a bath. Definitely, could both use a bath.”

“Offended,” Natasha mutters.

Matt shakes his head, starts to walk away. “Get her out of here Tony.”

“Ah, sure thing, mask guy? Black hood? Shadow Man? That one’s not half bad. I’ll take royalties if you use it.” He stoops and gathers Natasha in his arms.

Sirens pull into the lot at the front of the warehouse and Matt can hear raised voices. He breaks into a jog. The shadows of Hell’s Kitchen swallow his departure into the early hours of a new day. Natasha’s heart beats slow, but strong, until it fades from the edge of his perception.

### Natasha

She closes her eyes before hitting the ground. Maybe that’s a mistake. In any case, she closes her eyes and it happens so fast she barely feels a thing.

From the epicentre of the blast -- white-hot energy burning bright and fast. Vibrations that weaken the structure of the foundation they’re standing on. The ground starts to dissolve under their feet before the energy is sucked back to its source. Natasha has a good grip on Matt’s arm, they’re running forwards and then, suddenly, suspended in thin air. It goes from too bright in in the warehouse to dark again. They’re pulled back. They’re falling. Then, just as suddenly as the forces in the room swept them up, it pushes them out towards cold, night air. Natasha scrambles. Her heart leaps into her throat. She lets go of Matt.

  
Forearms hit the jagged concrete and she claws for purchase. She’s slipping. Hands come back with nothing but crumbling rock. She starts to fall backward into the gaping hole where the floor should be. There’s a great roaring sound and the warehouse just above her erupts in flames. She recoils from it, curling in on herself and closing her eyes as she falls.

She hits something on the way down. Side impacting some kind of tall shelving unit. She feels the air knocked from her lungs. Pain erupts along that side of her body. She’s twisting in mid-air when her feet impact the ground and her legs collapse under her with the force of her descent.

Maybe she blacks out, there’s a moment missing. Next thing Natasha knows she’s gasping for breath and her eyes are open. It’s black, at first, then an explosion of white and red spots like she’s looked right into the sun. Way above her, about twenty feet, bright orange flames lick away at the remaining floor.

Testing her body, Natasha brings her arms up to her torso, her breath is cut short by a lash of pain along the left side. Arms are working at least. Lungs protest but still fill and empty on command. She tries to sit up and falls back with a bit-off moan. There’s a stabbing pain in her right calf that obliterates every other sensation. For a moment she’s not breathing. Instead, holds everything completely still as though that will somehow help mitigate the sensation of bones — that should be straight and strong and unyielding — shifting in her leg.

She forces a slow exhale between clenched teeth and pursed lips. Breathes back in as deeply as her bruised ribs will allow. Natasha plants her hands and leverages up to sit so she can see the injury. Her left foot is slightly twisted away from the direction of her leg. There’s blood seeping from her pant leg into the top of her boot. She fishes the combat knife out of her belt with a muttered curse and uses it to cut her right sleeve from wrist to elbow, tearing the fabric off just above the joint. Breathing carefully, she leans forward through the pain and ties the strip of fabric tightly around the compound fracture. She repeats a mantra in her head, something she learned as a child in the red room, _no bol' yavlyayetsya chast'yu togo, kto my yest'_ _._ After a minute the pain dulls to an ache. One she can push back with every breath that leaves her body.

It won’t work. Not for long, anyway.

Matt is somewhere down here with her. For the first time, she extends her awareness past her own body and takes in the warehouse basement. What she hit on her way down is a tall stack of wooden shipping pallets. Rows of them, some stacked with crates or wrapped in plastic, dot and line the length of the storage facility. The stacks closest to the blast and the caved in floor have toppled dangerously. Natasha manages to squash the first image that rises to her mind of Matt crumpled somewhere beneath a pile of debris and toppled pallets.

“Matt?” She calls out, peering into the dark for a hint of the black-clad vigilante. There’s no response, but when her eyes have mostly adjusted she makes out the curve of his shoulder protruding from the rubble. Her heart starts hammering in her chest. She hopes, all at once, that he can and can’t hear it. Gritting her teeth she starts to drag herself towards him. “Matt?” she hisses, but he still doesn’t stir. He’s laying on his side with his arm captured beneath his body. His jaw is slack, she can’t tell if he’s breathing.

Natasha drags herself another painful foot. Her eyes are watering. Ash is raining down on them, a warm snow that’s collecting everywhere. She can already feel it under her eyelids and coating her tongue. If Matt is… can’t go there yet. Always have a plan. Natasha grimaces, going for her right boot. There’s a transponder there and she activates it. Always have backup plans for your backup plans.  

When she’s close enough to Matt, she reaches out until their hands touch. His fingers twitch reflexively at the contact and she lets out a too-quick breath for her protesting ribs. Natasha pulls herself forward on her elbows another foot until she can grab his hand and squeeze.

“Matt, you’re with me?”

His fingers curl around hers. The next minute he’s groaning, rolling onto his back and squeezing her hand.

It’s the best thing.

He’s favouring one arm, clutching it to his chest. There’s a red streak of blood leaking out from under his mask where his head was touching concrete. She can see the small pool of it smeared on the ground. He tries to sit up, grimacing, and she holds out a hand.

“Hey, easy. You’ve hit your head.”

He reaches up and pushes back his mask, gingerly touching the side of his head. He shakes himself a little like his brain is an Etch A Sketch with a picture burned on the surface. “You hurt?”

Ya, she’s hurting. Just about every part of her body has settled into a dull, quiet ache. Her leg is on fire. Now that Matt is talking the pain crashes over her in a second wave. Natasha’s seen a lot of bombings, a lot of fucked up stuff. There are about a million ways this situation could have ended worse for them, and they don’t even all end in death.

Natasha props herself in a sitting position against a piece of debris. She can see clearly now that Matt’s shoulder is out of the joint. He slides himself gingerly in her direction and extends a trembling hand that she guides to her fractured leg. He touches it gently, hardly making contact at all, but she still has to grit her teeth. His scowl deepens and Natasha gets the impression that time is short for both of them.

“What can I do?” he wants to know.

“How ‘bout we beat a quick escape, skip to phase two.” Because this plan hasn’t gone off the rails far enough for her taste, not yet. She’d planned to wait until after they danced back to the apartment to force the conversation, the one she knows he needs to have if they’re ever getting back to where they were, but here, now, she has the upper hand. Besides, dancing of any kind is going to be out of the question for awhile.

“Phase two?” His hands are still hovering over her calf, like he can’t decide how to proceed in this situation. Natasha is pretty sure If it were his tibia sticking out of his leg, he’d still try to limp home.

“The makeup sex,” she says with a shrug. Dismantling his stubborn silence is giving her back some much-needed energy.

“Didn’t realize we were fighting.” He settles on taking her hand and giving it a squeeze. She watches him cock his head from side to side. Listening. The distraction will make it easier to pry him open.

“Maybe we should be.” She tells him, forcing her voice even and expressionless. “I didn’t tell you about Stark. Or Rogers.” It’s guess number one, she watches his face for any trace of anger while she pops his shoulder back into its socket with one practiced movement. 

“You did tell me. You asked me to join, remember?”

“But I knew you had a problem with Stark.”

What he says next manages to surprise her, “You didn’t push when I said no. I respect you for a lot of things, Natasha. For that, for being an Avenger, for saving our city...”

Natasha distracts him from the heat rising to her face by keeping everything else carefully controlled, her breathing is even, her heart rate doesn't give anything away. When he gets to his knees, reaches down for her, she tightens an arm around his shoulders and holds her breath while he straightens up.

“Then what changed,” she grits out through her teeth.

“I did. I guess.”

He carries her as quickly as he’s able between a row of stacked shipping pallets to the back of the warehouse. He’s struggling. His shoulder must be agonizing. Natasha points out a chair sitting against the far wall and he lowers her into it gingerly. He’s more gentle with her leg than he is with his own injuries. He flutters around and she loses track of him for a minute while she closes her eyes. It’s getting a little hard to concentrate.

When she opens them again, Matt is still trying to form a plan. She can see it in every line of his face. Natasha is still unraveling the threads of her own. He paces to the freight elevator. Is gone for a moment. Paces back looking determined. The fire is crackling above their heads and smoke is heavy in the room.

“Matt.” Time to end this. “Tell me what happened.” It’s a command. She should have made it softer. He doesn’t respond well to commands. He shakes his head stubbornly, tries to suppress the wince that causes. She can tell he’s in pain and that hurts her too.

They banter, he’s still putting together a puzzle of his own. It’s easier for him to talk this way. When Natasha thinks he’s lowered his guard just a little, she tries again.

“Matt, tell me what happened.” This time it’s a request. Soft. Maybe he thinks it will be her last one. Natasha knows she isn’t giving in that easily but whatever works.

“I went out there unprepared.” He starts, “In a fuckin’ suit and tie.” He laughs, but his facial expression makes it look like a scream. He doubles over and tries to catch his breath around the bruised ribs and the gathering smoke. “It was like the world was ending.”

Natasha remembers. She remembers it distinctly because the world really was ending. It’s hard to say how much the public knows. How much Matt might have gleaned from the newspapers and broadcasts. The memorials and ceremonies. Even from being there on the day. It was such a mess, she can’t be sure anyone really understands what they were up against. A couple of demi-gods, human popsicles and super spies. One thing is evident to everyone — New York nearly got swallowed up, wiped off the map. Matt, at least, knows this. It’s in his face. The stakes were higher than he’d ever faced on his own.  

“And I couldn’t help.” He continues, choking. “All I could think of was Foggy out there in the middle of it. Everything was… too loud. I was blind. I let myself be overwhelmed. I failed myself. I failed my city,” he shrugs, “I failed you.”

Natasha remembers the conversation she had in the bar with Nelson's girlfriend. The image of Matt hurt, confused, wandering the street looking for his friend. She remembers the new skin knitting over the long scar on his side. The burns. She thinks of her team hovering just above the massacre. The hundreds of civilian casualties they couldn’t do a damn thing about. She reaches out a hand, stretching across the gap between them. He meets her halfway. Maybe he gets the apology she’s offering when she squeezes his fingers. _But pain is part of who we are._ It’s more soothing in Russian.

There’s a crowbar on the ground near Natasha’s chair. She uses Matt’s arm to leverage herself to standing. “OK. Danger boy.” picks up the crowbar and hands it to him. “Let’s get out of this death pit.”

Matt boosts Natasha through the hatch in the top of the elevator and she grapples up the shaft at half speed. Matt climbs up, favouring his left arm, and pries open the elevator doors at the top. It’s hotter up here, they’re mere feet and a few inches of metal away from the worst of the inferno. It feels like they’re trapped in an easy bake oven. The feeling must spur Matt on, because they’re through the doors quickly, collapsing on the gravel outside.

Tony shows up at the last, heroic moment because that’s what Tony does. She’s fading in and out at this point, doesn’t register that Matt isn’t coming with them until they’ve taken flight.

“Wait…” she tries to tell Tony, reaches back towards the sputtering candle of the warehouse in the distance. But they’re already high above the city and the candle winks out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay, would you believe I struggled to integrate Natasha's POV with Matts this time? Wasn't sure how much was redundant or if it was adding enough to the overall story. Sometimes you really need two POV's and sometimes having both is a pain in the butt. Gonna finish this off with a short epilogue since there are still a few things to tie up, thanks for reading and for all the lovely comments on the last chapter! They really got me going to finish this. Comments are, as always, love. <3
> 
> Some art I drew for this chapter: http://aniastrevelyan.tumblr.com/post/170203582438/kjewellart-i-self-indulgently-drew-a-cover-for


	5. Epilogue

Back on administrative leave. First bedrest, then physiotherapy, and finally just pointed instructions to “take it easy” until she can bear more weight on the limb. Safe to say, Natasha hasn’t ventured into Hell’s Kitchen in a while. Not for missions and not for fun. She sends Matt a text to his burner phone after waking up in the medical ward. She’s had his number for ages, never used it before. Prefers the window.

_Hope you’re not dead._

He sends back an equally terse reply. _Thanks.You too._

It’s enough to make her laugh. There is no universe in which that was an appropriate conversation for two people who just pulled each other out of a burning building.

A few weeks later Natasha gets a text. _Meet me at this address. Dress code: casual, but unrecognizable._

The address is a third-floor walk-up apartment in Hell’s Kitchen. There’s commercial spaces on the ground floor and a bar at the corner. Natasha puts on a blonde wig, large black sunglasses, and calls a cab. When she steps out onto the sidewalk, there’s a woman in a red peacoat waving at her.

“Miss Rushman?”

Natasha steps towards her, “Yes?”

“This way! Mr. Murdock is waiting for us inside.”

When she gets closer the woman reaches for her hand, her red painted mouth parting to reveal a row of chicklet teeth. “It’s lovely to meet you, Miss. Rushman, Mr. Murdock speaks so well of you. My name is Darcy and I’m the real estate agent showing you the apartment today!”

“Uh, thanks." Natasha shakes the proffered hand, "nice to meet you.” She follows Darcy into the vestibule.

The stairwell is poorly lit and the walls are bordering on crumbling. Natasha makes a show of disapproving of every imperfection. Whatever the game Matt's playing, Natasha is going to win. The third-floor landing is open, with two doors opposite each other and a narrow ascending staircase labeled roof access. Matt is waiting for them on the landing. He’s wearing his daytime getup; a cheap black suit that could use some tailoring, a white shirt, and black tie. He’s got the red glasses on that hide his eyes but Natasha can see the crinkling on either side that responds to his best smile, the open one that says more than just “glad you’re not dead.”

“Look who I found!” Darcy exclaims, oblivious to her own joke. Natasha covers the distance between herself and Matt in two long strides. He envelopes her in a hug, suppressing a laugh when she surprises him by pressing her mouth over his.

Darcy unlocks the door and leads them inside. “Ready for the tour?” 

The apartment has a small partitioned entry hall, Darcy explains that the kitchen is on the other side and the partition provides extra cabinet space. The hall opens into a lofted, open plan apartment with one bedroom and one bath. The kitchen is open, modern, with three appliances. There’s in-suite laundry. Big windows. Ample storage and — here’s where Matt bites his bottom lip to keep from giving away his excitement — private roof access via another narrow staircase leading from the living room to a platform above.

Natasha watches him as he pads hesitantly around the space. He maps out the distance from one wall to the next by tapping his cane, checks out the size of the bedroom and even asks her about the closet space.

“It’s ample.” She deadpans from the living room, “You could fit about a hundred lawyer suits in it.”

Matt measures the depth of the bedroom closet with his cane, “More like 50.”

There’s a storage cupboard under the stairs to the roof and Matt taps around in there too.

“Perfect for storing bicycles or exercise equipment!” Darcy is way too perky.

Natasha checks out the kitchen, tests the sink. She’s bought property before, owns a few apartments scattered around the world. They’re safe houses though, not exactly meant for everyday living. She never bothered picturing her everyday self spending time in any of them. Matt is pulling the translucent barn door back and forth across the bedroom entry, testing the hardware for sound. After, Darcy leads him by the elbow to the stairs.

“Hey Nat, I’m just gonna check out the roof with Darcy.”

“I’ll be here.” She calls back.

The sound of their chatter dissipates up the staircase and Natasha closes her eyes. She tries to imagine what it could be like.

Matt wakes up early, gets out of bed groggy and heads for the bathroom to shower. Natasha rolls over and occupies the warm divot where his body lay. The windows in the bedroom are small squares of yellow tinted glass. They cast patterns of yellow light across the blue bed sheets. The building used to be a factory, Darcy said. Natasha takes a deep breath of Matt’s pillow.

She gets up. There’s ample room in the bedroom. Maybe that’s where she does morning yoga. She stretches until the sound of the shower stops, catches up to Matt in the living room. He’s struggling into his work clothes and Natasha gets up close in the haze of warm damp from the shower and ties his tie for him. He kisses her on the cheek, rushes out the door. She’s left behind, but that’s OK. Natasha heard once that home is where your heart is. She’s thought a lot about that cliche over the years. She thought, a long time ago, that she might never have a home. If you never feel safe enough to share your heart, you can never leave it behind. But she’s alone now, in the eye of the dream, and she’s not afraid.

“What do you think?” Matt appears at her elbow. He’s got this huge grin on his face like maybe he sees what Natasha sees.

“It’s perfect,” she breathes.

 

When Darcy pulls out the paperwork Natasha’s eyes get wide. She takes Matt aside to have a private talk.

“I’ve seen your bank statements, you shouldn’t be able to afford this place. Why can you afford this place? Is something wrong with it?”

“I will gloss right over that,” he grins, “and tell you that there is a perfectly good reason for the discount I am receiving.”

“There better be. Otherwise, I’m gonna start pulling up floorboards and checking for bodies.”

“Darcy brought me this listing because there _is_ something wrong with the apartment.” He points to the living room window and Natasha fees a smile tug one side of her mouth higher than the other. She paces closer and finds a giant neon billboard clutching the roof of the building across the street. Projecting, directly into the living room, a detailed message about how much she can save on car insurance.

A few hours later, they’re sitting on the (original) hardwood floor sharing takeout Thai and that neon billboard is bathing the entire place in pink and blue light. Matt can’t stop grinning and Natasha feels uncharacteristically light.  

She shakes her head, “I can’t believe you finally said goodbye to the roommate.”

Matt scrunches up one eye and grimaces. “It was time. Foggy and I love each other like brothers but we both need a little space of our own.”

“He was gonna find out about your eccentric nighttime hobby,” she supplies.

“Ah, ya. Pretty much. And he wasn’t very happy when I came back to the apartment with a concussion the other night. Getting some distance will help.”

“You two going to be OK?”

“Ya,” he nods, waving a chopstick. “Better than OK. We’re going to be business partners!”

“Oh,” she pulls herself an inch closer. “Do tell?”

“Nelson and Murdock.” He points the chopstick dramatically like he can already picture the sign. “Attorneys at Law.”

“Sounds fancy.”

“And expensive,” he admits.

“And exciting.”

“Ya,” he nods. “It is.” Finished with the Thai food, Matt pushes the boxes away. “How are you, Natasha, really?”

“Better,” she nods. “Not back to active duty, but I’m full weight bearing.”

“You up for a dance?” His brown eyes are glittering, Natasha isn’t sure she’s ever seen him this happy.

“Hmm, tempting as it is, the doctor gave pretty specific instructions about leaping off buildings.”

He quirks his head to the side. She knows that expression, he’s listening. Natasha has to wonder how many screams he's already ignored tonight. How many crimes he's had to pass up during their dinner. Matt gets to his feet and slides the takeout boxes a little further with his foot. He reaches down and, after a brief hesitation, Natasha places her hand in his. He helps her stand, puts his hands on her waist.

“How ‘bout this kind of dance?”

She grins. “Without music?”

“I can hear music,” he whispers. “About ten different kinds. You prefer country? Rap? Folk?”

Matt starts to hum along to fast-paced music only he can hear. Natasha laughs against his collarbone and he pretends to change the station, switching to some equally indistinguishable song, slower now. In the empty apartment, their footsteps are loud, echoing as they shuffle in a circle. Natasha hangs her arms behind his head and presses her face to the bend in his neck. The soft vibrations of his humming tickle her cheek.

“I’m sorry, ‘Tasha, about before.”

She shakes her head against his chest, laughs when he spins her in his arms. Spins her around and around. The song must stop because the humming ends. He presses his mouth against hers. Natasha feels something hot expanding in her chest, she presses a hand to Matt’s heart and pushes away.

“Thank you, for the dance,” she whispers. Can’t linger. Not any longer than she already has. She picks up her jacket from the floor and pads to the entryway, slipping on her boots. “Congratulations on the apartment.”

Matt follows her. When he takes a step closer she takes one back. She’s more familiar with this dance. These are the steps she knows by heart. Matt’s eyebrows turn up at the center in a question.

“We should do this again, Matt.” She whispers, hand on the door.

“You know where to find me.” He motions around the apartment.

Natasha bites her lip. Steps in close and presses her lips greedily over his. She offers her mouth to him, takes his tongue in deep to capture his taste.

He looks confused when she pulls away. She squeezes his hand. _“Da svidania,_ Matt.”

Matt leans back against the partition wall with a half smile on his face, not quite reaching his eyes. “Can’t tell if you like me or if you tricked me.”

Natasha lets out a small breath in a huff, smiles. “Can’t it be both?”

 

Hell’s Kitchen is cold and loud tonight. When she steps onto the street, Natasha can feel all of it just a little too close and a little too bright. She keeps her steps even, sets a brisk pace. More than anything, Natasha wishes she could kick someone in the teeth.

She hates it when a plan backfires. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little fluff, a little angst, hopefully, a satisfying end for this chapter of their lives. 
> 
> If you've just joined us for this tale and you want to read more Matt and Nat, you can move backward in time and check out my previous two entries in the series. I will likely be taking a short break from the pairing while I finish some WIP's and plan for its future. 
> 
> As always, comments are love <3 Thanks for reading!
> 
> Edit: Check out a deleted scene here: http://aniastrevelyan.tumblr.com/post/170191238013/a-crazier-than-average-year-deleted-scene

**Author's Note:**

> Hi friends! I want to emphasize that I love and appreciate every comment LIKE SO MUCH, comments can mean the difference between feeling inspired to continue and feeling discouraged. 
> 
> That said, I'm getting a lot of comments bordering slightly on rude -- if you want to demand new chapters or content, I'm afraid you'll have to wait. I'm a creator doing this for fun whilst balancing a full life. I also will not tolerate any rude comments towards other readers. 
> 
> I do plan on continuing the series and I have lots of ideas for the future. I do appreciate your interest in my continuing, but please also keep your comment focused on this work. A great idea is to tell me what you liked about it, that way, when I write more I'll know what kinds of things to include! 
> 
> You can subscribe to the series to find out about updates here: http://archiveofourown.org/series/878316


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